How Do Geography Textbooks Deal with Map Skills? A Comparison of Turkey and England.

EYÜP ARTVİNLİ,LEYLA DÖNMEZ

doi:10.23741/rrge220202

Abstract

The skills used in all areas and stages of education are important also in geographical education. The concept of skill is important for the individual’s life at all stages of Education. Geographical skills contribute to the abilit y of individuals to think critically and solve problems. They also enable the individual to think at a metacognitive level. In this study, it was aimed to show the degree to which secondary geography textbooks gain the level of use of map skills. Maps are communication tools that show where and how positional information is found. One of the most important materials to be used in geographical education are Maps. The map, which will appeal to the studen t, should benefit the individuals in their daily life by an inductive method. Individuals with map skills can transfer this directly into their lives. They can both read the immediate environment in which they live and have global mapping skills and positio n analysis skills. In this study, skills, geographical skills, geography textbooks were analysed to determine their conceptual framework by focusing on map usage skills. This research is a qualitative one , with research data of 9, 10, 11 and 12 grade textbooks printed forthe 2017-2018 to 2019-2020 academic ye ar s. The process of collecting and analyzing geography textbooks used the document review technique.

Highlights

Using maps literally is an important stage in teaching the science of geography
Textbooks used in Turkey and United Kingdom were analysed according to usage level and the way maps develop students’ map skills
When we look at the geography textbooks used in the UK, the maps that reflect the city planning and the tasks given at the end of th e pag e sh ow a structure at a metacognitive level, when evaluated according to Bloom’s taxonomy

Summary

Introduction

A narrative without a map causes students to have difficulty understanding subjects and leads them to memorization. Maps play a major role in understanding and learning geography subjects. In geographical education and training, it is important to prepare. This issue is of great importance, as the ability to read maps is involved in the acquisition of geographical skills. Maps and map information in existing national education textbooks and most atlases available on the market are not suitable for u se in geography education, they are neither prepared, nor controlled by experts. On the other hand Aksoy (2019, p. 599) found that the map skills are the important components of map literacy

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Conclusion